🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal